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Die Points

A quick calculation that helps to determine how many units will be
necessary is to count up how many die points you and your opponent each
have. Die points are calculated based on the hitting ability of each
unit involved. For instance, an infantry on offense has to roll a one to
get a hit. So infantry get 1 die point on offense. A fighter would thus
get 4 die points on defense and 3 die points on offense. You get the
idea.

However, there is another consideration. Cannon fodder. Letís say
your opponent is going to attack with 10 infantry, which is 10 die
points. The quick calculation would say you only need 5 infantry to
defend evenly, which is 10 die points as well. Yet 10 infantry will
usually easily beat 5 infantry defending. Both sides will each get 1.66
hits on average (10 die points / 6 die points per die). The attacker
then has 8.33 infantry remaining, which is 8.33 die points. The defender
has 3.33 infantry remaining, which is 6.66 die points. You can easily
see how the defender is going to lose the battle.

The quick rule of thumb is that if your cannon fodder units (the
units youíll lose first in the battle) have lower die points than your
opponentís cannon fodder units (the units heíll lose first in the
battle), you can win the battle with equal to or even slightly fewer die
points, whereas your opponent will typically have to have greater
numbers of die points in the battle in order to succeed. So if you start
the battle with even die point summaries, but your opponent has to lose
a fighter on his first loss (a high die point contributor), and youíre
losing infantry on your first loss (a low die point contributor), youíre
going to win.

Therefore there are two components to consider in evaluating die
points:

1. How many die points do you and your opponent have

2. How strong or fragile are the two die point totals

The strongest possible die point total would be all infantry
attacking with 1s. The most fragile possible die point total would be
all fighters defending on 4s.

So get into a habit of whenever youíre assessing how powerful your
own forces and your opponentís forces are, calculate the die points.
If your opponent has 32 die points that he could attack you with on your
next turn, and you would be defending with 43 die points, then you
should be pretty safe (assuming your die points arenít composed solely
of a bunch of fighters, which would result in you having a very fragile
die point structure that collapses quickly after a few initial losses).